Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Burrow RETURNS: Cincinnati Bengals Film Breakdown Reveals How Joe Burrow Knocked Off The Rust vs Ravens

Starting point is 00:00:00 We've got Joe Burrow film to break down for the first time in forever. And so let's talk about how Joe Burrow played in his first game back from Turf To in a big win against the Baltimore Rape. You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What up Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day, now the number one sports. Podcast Network in the land. I'm Jake Lusco, your host of Lockdown Bengals,

Starting point is 00:00:39 hosting this show since 2019. This show's existed since 2016, your best one-stop shop on the internet. For all things, Cincinnati Bengals are today joined by our resident film expert, Mike Santagena here to break down with me. Joe Burroughs returned to action. What works for the defense? What's sustainable?

Starting point is 00:01:00 And what's going on with that offensive line that's really showing significant signs of improvement? as this season goes on for the Cincinnati Bengals. That's what we'll get to in this episode of Lockdown Bengals, brought to you by GameTime. You can download the GameTime app, create an account and use code Lockdown NFL to get $20 off your first purchase of tickets. Welcome back to the Everydayers out there.

Starting point is 00:01:23 Welcome back to all of you who make Lockdown Bengals your first listen. We appreciate all of you who are part of the Everydayer Club and are here with us as you start your day. And of course, at this point, you've probably seen the Bengals, squad shows out there. You'll see Mike Santagena with our crew on the Bengals squad shows directly after the game on the postgame show. And I'll be on those shows in the middle of the week. It's just new supplemental programming here on the lockdown Bengals channel if you need a little bit more Bengals coverage in your life. But today, Mike, we dive into the film. We finally got

Starting point is 00:01:57 some Joe Burrow film to talk about for the first time since week two. He finishes the game. looks honestly for the most part unaffected by the turf toe injury the steel plate in his shoe I think there's maybe a handful of plays where I thought his mobility was slightly affected one of those where he's rolling to his left

Starting point is 00:02:15 ends up turfing it at the feet of his running back on the play doesn't have quite enough juice to escape the impending pass rush there as he's trying to escape the pocket but after he settled in I thought he knocked the rust off very quickly I think that he talked about his footwork in the first half being a little bit frantic, but eventually he settles in.

Starting point is 00:02:36 What did you see from Burrow as this game progressed from the first half where he looked a little bit like early season Borough to the second half where I thought he looked like midseason Burrow. He looked blocked into me. Yeah, what was interesting to me was it felt like in the first half got a little checkdown happy, got a little, let's keep myself alive in these situations. I also did feel like that's where he kind of was a little bit scattershot and that's probably footwork related.

Starting point is 00:03:01 where it sailed a couple of outroutes and I think a deep ball. So the accuracy wasn't exactly where it normally is. But then, like you said, that second half, it felt like a normal Joe Burrow type of game where he's on time. He's hitting windows that can only be accessed when you're seeing the game at a high level. He's making accurate, pinpoint accurate throws. I mean, the one to Tanner Hudson, as awesome as that is as a catch, it's also putting that ball in a bucket where only Hudson can get it.

Starting point is 00:03:31 in the offhand away from Kyle Hamilton on the run. That's pretty awesome. And there's just throws like that throughout the game, some anticipation stuff on the outside, the Mitch Tinsley, where he didn't run hard enough. I thought that was Joe Burrow. Great processing, great throw.

Starting point is 00:03:49 I mean, it's a throw that doesn't happen very often. Most quarterbacks aren't throwing that. Joe Flacko probably isn't throwing that, and that could be a reason Mitch Tinsley is not used to being in a live route. But that's also why you had those are called for the love of the game routes because you're running as hard as you can just for the love of the game. You're not getting the ball here. But the reason you also run that hard is because there's that one in a thousand chance that the corner is peeking inside because it's Jamar Chase running an out route and thinking he might get a pick six. And you're open.

Starting point is 00:04:19 So it's tough. But that was another example of like, I know it didn't go for anything. But that is like, oh, Burrow is feeling it right now. Like he is reading body language of the defenders really well. and accessing these throws that not every quarterback is able to do felt like his eyes were in the right place a lot in this game so the processing especially in the second half and the timing felt really good the accuracy a little up and down but also felt like that improved over the second half might all be footwork laid might have been getting used to the steel toe in the or steel plate in the

Starting point is 00:04:51 shoe but he also made some plays out of structure too might have been a little bit less mobile than normal but i'd saw him do the quarterback sneak botched RPO that turns into like a quarterback lead draw type of play. So there's some stuff in that makes you think like he's not immobile. It's just a little less mobile and it's probably not as comfortable. Yeah, I think it's just a little bit less than you're used to seeing from him in terms of the mobility. But he's still like outside of structure creating the play to Jamar Chase to convert a first time. This team converting when they get behind the chains, they get into a first and 20, which for the last six weeks, even for all the good things I've said about Joe Flacco. And I know we converted in this

Starting point is 00:05:29 situation a couple of times, but it felt like that was the end of the drive. You get behind the chains, that's the end of the drive. You get to a second and ten, you get to a third and ten, that's the end of the drive. And Joe Burrow able to overcome those things in a little bit of a higher frequency, especially against the Ravens, especially with Jumar Chase. I did think in the first half as well, and let me know what you think of this. I thought that he did find glimpses of peak Joe Burrow. It wasn't like it was all the one for 10 in the red zone stuff where everything is just off. There were a number of throws that did come out with really great timing and anticipation. You talked about the one to Mitch Tensley that doesn't end up being a touchdown, but talk about

Starting point is 00:06:08 really great anticipation. You have a great clip of this. And so make sure you're following Mike at Bengals underscore Sands on Twitter where he's got clips of a lot of the plays. We're going to be talking about in this episode. He's got a clip of this one, the anticipation throw to Mitch Tensley. But outside of that, I just thought like on some of the outbreakers, the anticipation was still there. He gets through a backside dig, which illustrates, again, that processing speed. He gets there on time in structure. And he gets there a couple of times. One of them Chidovia Wuzier bats away and a really good man coverage route for Chinovia Wuzier. But there are also some plays that I thought if Mitch Tinsley can come down with some of these contestant kept situations, you're thinking,

Starting point is 00:06:48 man, that's a hell of a throw from Joe Burrow. One of them being in the end zone, a ball that hits Mitch in the hands is he's kind of diving backwards. Would have been a really tough catch. don't get me wrong. But if Mitch makes that play, you're thinking, man, Joe put that in the spot where only Mitch Tinsley can make a play on that ball and they got a touchdown out of it because his trunk landed inbound. So if you would have caught it clean, would have been a touchdown. There's also the ball to the right sideline that Mitch Tinsley couldn't quite catch

Starting point is 00:07:12 cleanly. That again, you could have sat there and thought, man, that was a heck of a throw from Joe Burrow. And Mitch Tinsley couldn't quite bring it in. Not to pick on Mitch Tinsley, who made some plays in this game as well and has made some plays this season, but that's the difference, I think, in some of the ways we're thinking about this game where there are some plays that I thought there were great throws from Burrow that weren't rewarded with the catch on the other end. Yep, I agree. And you mentioned the anticipation on the outrout. So I thought that was mostly fantastic. I think there was like one or two he might

Starting point is 00:07:44 have been a tiny bit laid on, but overall. He figured it out, yeah? Like he kind of settled in and got there? I figured, I think, yeah, he settled in. I think that's a way to do it is that he's kind of knocked off some of that rust early on, and the Bengals' offense kind of protected him early on up until a sack, an unfortunate sack. The only sack, which I think Somage P. Ryan and Joe Burrow both a little bit oblivious to the slot blitz there. What did you think? Did you think that P. Ryan should have kind of come off the play action a little bit earlier there to identify that and pick up Marlon Humphrey blitzing there? Yeah, because there's no other way to protect that unless P. Ryan kind of abandons to play action. It's to that side, so he's not really

Starting point is 00:08:24 in, you know, you're not worried about him running into the quarterback to try to get there or anything or taking a long route around. So, yeah, ideally P. Ryan kind of comes off that. I think that, to me, kind of signaled, this is a team that doesn't really get under center condensed formations very often and wasn't expecting one of the most common answers to that, which is just sending that corner because he's so tight to the line. Yeah, one of the things that I want to make sure we talk about with the Joe Burrow return and talking about the adjustment, this being one of them, this Joe Burrow turning us back to the defense situation where he ends up taking the only sack he takes in the game,

Starting point is 00:09:05 then they kind of shift and go back to the Joe Burrow offense to their detriment in some spots that red zone sequence after Lamar Jackson turns it over on the three-yard line. and to their benefit in others where the past Andrei Yosovash is a good example of this. And just the way he played on their two big touchdown drives in the second half, I think illustrate the upside that you get with a guy like Joe Burrow who can continue to do it the hard way when he has to throughout a game, where on the other side, Lamar Jackson in those moments, was unable to do so in this game.

Starting point is 00:09:37 So let's talk a little bit about the scheme and an excellent performance from the offensive line before we dive into what's working for the Bengals defense, Those topics coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by Game Time. The World Cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994. And with 48 teams for the first time ever, it's going to be the biggest World Cup. Well, if you're looking for tickets, that might be tricky. And that's why game time is clutch.

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Starting point is 00:11:03 in this one and how it evolved. Like you said, they protect them in a little bit early on, and then we saw the return of the Joe Burrow offense. What did that look like to you in terms of the differences from the Burrow offense and the Flacco offense and, you know, people were talking quite a bit about how the Bengals better keep some of this stuff from the Flacco offense. Did any of those ideas stick around it?

Starting point is 00:11:23 Because it felt like at least some of the run game did, but what were your thoughts on how the scheme adjusted for Burrow instead of Flacco instead of Browning and what we've seen from this team throughout the last six to nine weeks, I guess, nine games since Joe Burrow last played? Honestly, that first drive didn't even feel like the Flacco offense. It was so protected. It almost felt like he was pulling it, that Taylor was pulling in from his McVeigh days with Jared Goff where it's so much like boot and just wide zone handoffs and trying to run the ball

Starting point is 00:11:53 and just run play action. Don't even get into drop back situations that often. And then, yeah, they take a sack because they're in that condensed formation. You think of the shot McVeigh offense. It's a condensed offense. Actually, I don't even think it was the slot. I think he was the only wide receiver on the side. So it was a true cat blitz from Marlon Humphrey on that one.

Starting point is 00:12:14 But that's just how tight the only receiver on that side was was right. off the line of scrimmage because that's how you run that offense, then entirely abandoned the idea altogether. And I think Burrow got them out of a couple of under center looks too, but there was a little bit in there. And I think especially in the run game, like you mentioned, they kind of run an interesting misdirection type of toss play where they pull a guard and have the running back kind of take a step that way and then jet back out the other way away from the guard.

Starting point is 00:12:44 Which the Ravens also hit for a touchdown, or at least something similar. with Keaton Mitchell earlier in the game. The Bengals hit last week too, I think, actually. Yeah, I think it's becoming a popular play, kind of like one of the fad plays of the NFL. So Pagos was finally running one of those. I feel like normally you see those. It's like, no, they don't run the RPO with the wheel flat post thing.

Starting point is 00:13:05 They just don't do that. So they're running one of the fad plays, which is cool. But I think some of that stuck in there. I think the run blocking and the blocking in general is some of the best that Burrow has had in his, career, which is relatively a low bar, sadly. But I thought they were very good in this game. We'll talk about that later.

Starting point is 00:13:23 But I know the offense, it just, it felt like there was too much of the burrow stuff at times. And yeah, it is specifically that low red zone going out in empty. It's just, man, there's no way I would be happy about that with a healthy, fully healthy, and playing like prime Joe Burrow. I'd be a little bit like, damn, we have a threat of a run. here. And then to do that first game back, turf toe, I think that was just kind of, that felt like a little bit of Zach Taylor feeling himself a little too much when Burrow was doing an okay job in that first couple of drives. Yeah, it's always a balancing act, right, of giving

Starting point is 00:14:05 Burrow a chance to be Burrow, right? Like you don't necessarily want to take the ball out of Burrough's hands, but on a first down, you can at least present the threat of a run. You can maybe hand the ball off on first and goal from the three. And then you have a couple more shots with Borough after that. And obviously they took those shots with Borough after that. They were unable to convert in those spots. And there was a fade ball at one point to Jamar Chase that was covered well and pressed. The press worked on Jamar Chase in that spot.

Starting point is 00:14:36 I do feel like they found some answers, though, as they often do. And the second half, they found the rhythm they needed. They figured some things out. They were able to run the ball to kill some clock in the second half effectively as well. The carry split, weird in this one a little bit. We talked about that a little bit on the post game show as well. The Somaget P. Ryan Chase Brown carry split very close to even, even though Chase Brown out snapped Somaget P. Ryan by nearly 20.

Starting point is 00:15:05 The Bengals ran a lot of plays in this game, too. They've banned, I think, 80 plays on offense, which is, I think, significantly the most they've run this year. I would probably have to double check, but it's the only time on NFL Pro where it was triple digits for the Bengals office. That includes like some kicks and stuff too, but I was like, oh, big one. Yeah. So there you go. Most offensive plays they've run this year. They also kicked six field goals, so that's inflating that number a little bit, I guess.

Starting point is 00:15:31 But I thought that they found answers in the second half as Burroughs settled in, found the rhythm they needed to find, found the answers to what the Ravens were trying to do to them defensively. And it's all really bolstered by the idea that we actually have protection in this game. The offensive line was outstanding in pass protection in this game. Joe Burrow rarely pressured. What worked for the offensive line, Mike? Is this just a unit that's coming together, is Scott Peters clicking? And with this group of guys at this point, they've had great continuity there for the most part. Now, Dalton Reisner and right guard a little bit of a change,

Starting point is 00:16:05 but this is two weeks in a row with this configuration of the offensive line. Oh, yeah. I think Scott Peters was a lot of credit because this is, I think Dylan Fairchild looks like a vet on stunts with the way he's communicating with Ted Caras and Orlando Brown did a good job. The hardest match. The only thing is that the Ravens don't really present a ton of one-on-one pass rush winners without Matabike. But Travis Jones is probably the best of that group, question mark. I'm not a full ratings expert, but I think so. And felt like Fairchild handled him pretty well.

Starting point is 00:16:38 I thought Reisner handled him when he had to. Mike Green did not look like some type of high-end, you know, rookie talent against Mims or Orlando Brown felt like they really just handled all their one-on-ones really well. And that includes plays where Burrow is holding the ball an extended amount of time or trying to create something out of structure. The only times that they really had any issues would be Burrow kind of drifting into it or there's a sack or not the, but like the sack,

Starting point is 00:17:07 like blitzes and stuff too would obviously get home when they don't have enough guys to make that block. But even the blitzes, you think about that touchdown that Yosevas. And Robin won't. I mean, especially if P.Rine did a great job. And Piron cross keying to the opposite side and getting just a hand on that defensive back. I thought that was awesome. And he's not even touched on a blitz like that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:28 And the confidence from Burrow really stands out there, right? Like I think when Burrough is going well, he has a great feel for where pressure is coming from with his offensive line. He develops that sense for this is how much time I have. This is where I need to maneuver. And the confidence there is just like, no, Pyrai's got that. I can just step up and throw this thing. And that tells you that to me, feeling really confident in his protection in this game. And I think maybe it's results based because it just kind of works.

Starting point is 00:17:57 Like maybe if he takes a sack there, we would be calling him oblivious a little bit. But it seems like instead to me, he's got a great feel for that's what made me think yeah he's good like he's knocked the rust off he's he's feeling like mid-season joe burrow at that point yeah and he made some throws in what i would consider like kind of muddy pockets but that's the nfl where you're going to make throws where there's a guy around your feet or there's you know one of your linemen is getting pushed back a little bit too far and makes you a little uncomfortable that's just the nfl but that's still good protection to me because he's upright he's not getting hit while he throws it's it's some of the best protection joe burrow's had and i think you're

Starting point is 00:18:37 he was kind of getting used to that as well. I feel like with some of this where he didn't have to go one to two to I got to go make a play out of structure. You're kind of talking about those backside digs. And part of me thinks he's, he's, you know, reaching those because he's now comfortable, like, man, this offensive line is giving me enough time that I can cycle all the way to the backside dig. Yeah, I agree.

Starting point is 00:18:58 I also think that like he even left some clean pockets at times. Some of that led to a good play. It's like he's buying himself an angle on the Tanner Hudson touchdown. But that's a clean pocket. He doesn't have to go if he has something else in structure, but he leaves to get that angle. And you mentioned the Bengals doing a great job against Mike Green. Thought stylistically that could be a problem.

Starting point is 00:19:17 But, man, Orlando Brown and Amarius Mims both playing awesome football in pass protection and tackle for the Bengals in this game. Orlando in particular, violently engulfing guys throughout the game. And Amarius Mims, I thought, just did a really good technical job overall, just a great pass protection game from him. but on the other side it was more comical to watch because of Marius was, or because Orlando was burying guys a couple of times, which is pretty fun. And also, I mean, you talk about Dylan Fairchild and his progress as a rookie under Scott Peters,

Starting point is 00:19:51 when you're drawing praise from a random Brandon Thorne, who is a guy we've had on this show in the past as an offensive line expert, drawing praise from Brandon Thorne after a Thanksgiving game. That's a good place to be for a rookie. I know Fairchild was one of his guys, but exciting to see the development from Fairchild. We got to talk about this defense, so Mike. Plan to get to it a little bit earlier, but a lot to talk about with Joe Burroughs, return the defense with five takeaways, a lot working in their favor.

Starting point is 00:20:18 Still some problems. Let's talk about what's working and what's sustainable with this defense down this stretch coming up next. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. The holiday season is one of the best times for sports. You got bowl games, big basketball matchups, playoff pushes. You probably just watched Ohio State play Michigan. It's all happening at the same time. And while we're all making choices every day,

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Starting point is 00:22:03 Consistent pressure on Lamar Jackson. And while again, it's not the kind of pressure. that is dominant. It's not the quick trade Hendrickson wins or the kind of thing you imagine Miles Garrett or have seen Miles Garrett do with Joe Burlett quarterback for the Bengals over the years. They're muddying the pocket consistently and eventually they're getting through. And so you kind of see this synergy in this game between corners that we're playing well between Daxil and DJ Turner and the front that was relentless and has been getting pressure with Miles Murphy and Joseph Osai consistently stepping up. It was an especially nice game for

Starting point is 00:22:39 Osai, obviously coming up with the forced fumble, coming up with two sacks. But what were your thoughts as far as what was working on defense? Because to me, it's pretty encouraging to see Al Golden finding the right buttons to push in the Blitz game that he's been ramping up a little bit in the last few weeks. Exactly where I was going to go is that it felt like Al Golden got really aggressive in this game. And they ran cover zero, especially in that second half, I feel like, a ton in those must-pass situations. It helps that you get the Ravens into those by taking the lead and getting into a position where they have to throw the ball. But when they got them into must-pass situations, yes, Lamar played bad, but some of that is also Golden bringing different

Starting point is 00:23:25 looks, but also kind of lining up in zero and just bringing it a lot of times, where it really didn't feel like the Ravens expected that. And I think some of that is how much Golden has lined up and pressure looks over the course of the season. And he drops out or he brings four and tries to, you know, we've talked a lot about it. He hasn't had his finger on the pulse of these past protection schemes to be able to bring four and get a free runner or get a guy against the running back. What you can do, what any defensive coordinator should be able to do is bring six, seven, eight, and you'll have just one more guy. So as long as they don't get too muddied up and walled up in there, you should be able to get home. And I thought that was something that Golden did really well.

Starting point is 00:24:03 The other thing that Golden did in this game, I feel like a lot of stunts. And you talk about Osai's great game. And it feels like a lot of what he got came off of blitzes and stunts. Yes, he had some pressures one-on-one too. I'm not trying to discredit him. But I also want to give some credit to Al Golden because it was a tech stunt on the left side with Murphy that worked to get him the strip sack. And then throughout the game, those two kind of ran some stunts. And they were almost always successful against the Rosengarten and

Starting point is 00:24:31 and Folle-Ley-L combo on that side. I also thought that they dialed up one of those replacement pressures that we've been so critical of all year. But like you said, starting to feel out the protection rules. And I thought he did a great job of challenging the Patriots protection rules a few times last week. But that's what gets Osai as a free rusher on the right side. The Ravens slide right.

Starting point is 00:24:53 They're forced to slide right to account for all the bodies in there. And the left tackle Ronnie Stanley has to block, I think it was a blitzing linebacker. know it was safety even maybe it was a blitzer that was not a defensive lineman and so because he has a more direct path to the quarterback in the B gap he has to step down and take that inside rusher gives Joseph Osai a free path to Lamar Jackson and so that really stood out to me in terms of Al golden dialing it up and it also stood out when they dial up that zero pressure and it gets Miles Murphy one on one with Isaiah likely and he gets his hand in there to create the interception so those are plays

Starting point is 00:25:30 where, yeah, you credit those guys for executing and taking advantage of those opportunities when you have them, especially Miles Murphy because there's a player on the other side. And Joseph Osai is able to run through Lamar Jackson not get jukeed. So you credit him for that too. But Miles Murphy really getting into Isaiah

Starting point is 00:25:47 likely's chest, great bull rush there. Isaiah likely is not a guy that should stand up to Miles Murphy in those spots, but nice to see Miles take advantage of that. And Al Golden for putting guys in spots that are advantageous to them to make place. Yeah, kind of treated him like he should, like what you expect that to go. And it does come just a few plays after, didn't take a snap off from hawking down Derek Henry, 44 yards downfield.

Starting point is 00:26:10 So it was impressive to me and getting his hand up too, because the pressure was one thing. We get his hand up in there. I thought Golden did a good job in this. And, you know, he did a good job stopping the run for the most part outside of, you know, a couple of big runs as well to get him into these situations, not just them taking a lead because it was a close. close game throughout the entire first half, but it never felt like Derek Henry was taking over the game or anything like that where you're just entirely fearful of like, the Ravens were just going to get the ball and they'd just be able to hand the ball off to Henry every single play. The run defense showed up as well.

Starting point is 00:26:44 I think part of that is also Lamar was clearly hampered, right? Like he wasn't moving as well as normal. He only really threatened them in the run game on the one or two play. Like he had a scramble. He had a keeper that they weren't ready for. I don't think they were buying that he was keeping the ball as an option. in the normal option game that the Ravens have. It wasn't really present in this one.

Starting point is 00:27:05 The other thing that worked for the Bengals in this game, I thought DJ Turner once again had a nice game, whether or not you agree with the offensive pass interference call. Did his thing out there, Dax Hill, with the great recovery to get in there and break up a pass when he's beat by DeVontes Walker. Even Josh Newton on that fourth down, getting the hand up to knock away that pass.

Starting point is 00:27:28 Guys took turns in the secondary in this one. So Jalen Davis, yeah, he got pancakes and everybody saw it and everybody made a big deal out of it. You don't want to do that. Yeah, that's not great. But even Jaila Davis had a few plays of his own, including the strip of his own to create the fumble that finally removed the drama from this one. What else worked in the back half, would you say, Mike? And what should we still be worried about? Because it felt like the linebackers still had issues.

Starting point is 00:27:55 And Barrett Carter made some plays in addition to the issues that he had. And it was still a lot of the same issues, but at least he made some plays this week. He hasn't missed a tackle for a couple of weeks, and you take that as a step in the right direction. But what's your overall assessment here? Because Buffalo, obviously, a considerable test. And then Baltimore, again, some very important games for the Bengals that they want to keep their season left. Yeah, it felt to me like the corners did play a great game. I think whenever they were match or man or plastering out of structure, I thought they played really well.

Starting point is 00:28:27 I didn't think they did anything wrong in their zones. It did feel to me a bit, though, like the safeties and the linebackers had some mistakes in both man-end zone and match coverages. So that's where I think you get into. Was this, is this sustainable when you asked like Jordan Battle getting beat by a tight end and then chasing him down, incredible play to chase him down and force a fumble that goes out of bounds? but on a normal day, if that is Dawson Knox or Dalton Kincaid or whoever for the bills and he runs the whole way down there, does he just hang on to the ball? And then instead of incredible play, you're thinking, oh, my goodness, what is going on with this defense?

Starting point is 00:29:09 Why can't they cover tight ends? But throughout the game, kind of that under center play action overrout stuff was always available. So that makes me a little bit worried that, you know, Buffalo sees that on film and hopefully the Beng will see that on film and go, like, we got to get back. into coverage faster on these tie downs on these overrouts to provide help. But that does make a little worried of like, how sustainable is this? Also, you talk about five turnovers.

Starting point is 00:29:33 And that's another one. It's like you hope, you hope that you can always get five turnovers in a game, but it's more likely the best defenses of the leader getting like two. So can you still put up a great performance getting two turnovers? And can they be as clutch as some of these, like going through the back of the end zone on fumble? So those are what has me worried. What doesn't really have me that worried is the O.

Starting point is 00:29:54 Sy Murphy combo in the pass rush and the Dax Hill and DJ Turner combo in coverage. I think those things seem at least okay for the defense. It's everything else that's I'm not 100% sure if you can always count on getting these turnovers or a guy dropping a ball when your guy falls down in coverage or bad throws from the quarterback or the quarterback just throwing the ball on the ground for a fumble. So that stuff's not really sustainable. So can they keep doing it in a situation against, let's say, Josh Allen where he's not going to do those things. We don't know. Maybe he does, and that would be awesome. Maybe they just get in the

Starting point is 00:30:27 heads of all these quarterbacks and you get some good fumbles. But I think that's a big test for them this week is, can you keep repeating this? Because they did rattle Drake May a little too, I felt like. I didn't feel like that looked like an MVP type performance. And May was putting up some really good performances against better defenses. Yeah. May kind of settled in, obviously, in the second half of that game. But they still found a few stops at key times. And I think Al Golden is to credit for some of that. I think Jalen Davis in the slot has had a couple of really impressive weeks for them. And that's probably the trio that we see going forward, assuming that you have health

Starting point is 00:31:05 there. So if you can build around your defensive plan around the fact that you can trust your corners for the most part, we'll see if Dax can sustain this level of play. Really nice bounce back game for Dax in this one. But if you can build around having some guys. that you like the direction they're going and Joseph Osai who's really strung together now five

Starting point is 00:31:28 weeks of solid plus play in a row capitalizing this week with eight pressures two sacks the direction we're seeing from Miles Murphy where the effort is converting into plays a little bit more often and

Starting point is 00:31:44 the theme that stands out to me is you're getting hustle plays I mean the yeah you gave up the big catch if you're Jordan battle but at least you stuck with it, right? And yeah, you gave up a 45-yard catch or whatever it was to Derek Henry on first and 20 checkdown or whatever it was. And that's not something you want to do, but Miles Murphy tracked them down.

Starting point is 00:32:05 And then Miles Murphy had an opportunity to make the play that created the turnover. So I do agree that there's still major concerns for this defense, but they made some plays this week. It is a step in the right direction. And at least it gives you an idea, I think, if you're outgoing enough, something that you can kind of coach around or build around, right? Like these things have worked. Let's see if these things continue to work.

Starting point is 00:32:29 And obviously, every quarterback's different. You're going to need a different plan every week. But it's nice to see that he's at least found some solutions that have disrupted offenses. Of course, we'll have you covered here on lockdown Bengals all week as we gear up for another huge game for the Bengals going on the road to Buffalo, a game that is now earlier in the day than it otherwise would have been. It got flex to the 1 o'clock spot from its late afternoon window. I wonder if the schedule makers are regretting that at all. Maybe not, because I don't know about you, Mike, is weird.

Starting point is 00:32:59 Like, nobody's talking about this Bengals game. And if the Ravens have won, I can guarantee you people, if you talk about, oh, yeah, the Ravens in commanding position in the AFC North now. Did they just seal their, you know? None of that in this one. But we'll have you covered here all week, and make sure you're checking out the squad shows as well. Find Mike on Twitter and his writing at Bengals Talk.

Starting point is 00:33:20 where you'll find his film breakdowns. And until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Ho day. And have a good one.

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